Mr Bob gave me permission to borrow yet another of the boys from Jim's Super Stereoworld. One of the deals made on the split of Carter was that if jim were to form another band, he would have Salv and Ben, so I have to ask Jim's permission whenever i have them out on loan.

Anyway, after about 6 hours of practising we were ready to put on our rock and roll plimsols.

I can see that this is going to be a rambling diary.

'We awoke at the break of day, pulled on our stout shoes, climbed the fence of Farmer Willaim's chicken run and headed for the moors, binoculars swinging nonchalantely around our necks."A lark" cried George. "It is" said I, chuckling to myself'

No, not that kind of rambling diary.

We arrived at The Garage in time to catch headline band Gold Blade's sound check. They sounded awesome and were so loud, the fillings were dancing away from the enamel.

We had a quick soundcheck ourselves, which sounded pretty good. we watched Divine Brown fly through a few lovely slices of rock & Roll and then decided to hit the pub. Ben wanted to go to the Weatherspoons pub, but I didn't like the way it was filled with "suits", so we settled for the Famous Cock, which is the one right next to Highbury Tube.

Met loads of mates in the pub, had a good chat and then headed back to the venue to try and catch the first on band Buzzkill. Unfortunately our timing was a bit out and they were coming offstage when we arrived.

We did see Divine Brown strut their stuff though and very good stuff it was too.

Next up was us. I had a good feeling about this gig, a good idea that we were going to be rather good.

And we were!

I was told many times after we played that that was the best Abdou gig ever. I reckon it might've been.

The finalé was a rock n roll spectacular version of Fish Face, with living legend Marc Ollington, pushing the siren button on the sampler. He was jumping around like he had a 9 volt battery up his bottom (maybe he did ?) . The song ended with Marc and Richard sparring in true Ziggy Stardust style, blood pooring from Marc's forehead were Richard had scored him with his g string.

What fun!

Next up were Gold Blade who are a fantastic band. I have seen them a few times now and I reckon they are marvellous. Those heroic poses, the Clash style back-up vocals, the anthems! A brilliant end to the evening.

As usual, the gig ended with the Abdou gang getting to drunk to duck. Salv did some great DJing, everyone else was practising falling over.

That's about it?

Oh yeah, Jim asked me not to tell you that he chundered.

Big Love Fruity xxx

2002-07-07, Ambient Picnic - Shalford Park - Guildford

Well the day started with me, Ben and his Bruv Charles watching the British Grand Prix at home in Brixton. The result wasn't much to my pleasing but the race itself was very interesting with little rain showers just about confusing all of the teams apart from Ferrarri.

Anyway, set off for Guildford in a convoy of two cars, Richard's Lamborghini and Ben's Mercedes. We raced to guildford on an almost empty A3. I din't see any speed cameras setting off, but I reckon coz that because we were too fast for e'm!

Arriving in Guildford in second place, Rich, Andy and myself spotted the rest of the crew behind the backstage fencing. It took a few tours of the car park, but eventually we were settled in queueing for beers and attaching the rather fetching wristbands to our wrists.

My girl Crissi was over in the healing fields reading the runes to many a soul, I'm sure that they went away knowing a lot more about themselves than they thought they would. She's pretty good at that stuff, is Crissi. Our other flatmate Mary was in the next tent giving massages. It's all a bit ooffy fooffy for my liking in the healing field, but everyone is very friendly even when they ask for 50p deposit on a plastic cup ;-)

It wasn't that long before it was time for us to play some songs. We climbed up onto the 'rock' stage and lauched into Air Odeon Disco Pub. From then on it was almost plain sailing .

It was a strange set as I had worked it out thinking that Pete was going to be there to play keyboards, He was busy moving house all weekend so that put a stop to that idea. We decided to go ahead and play Will She Come & All The Way From Memphis in an experimental non-piano way and I think they more or less worked. No one complained except for a really, really drunk bloke who came up to me afterwards saying that it was terrible and we should never have split up Carter.

After we had buried him, we decided that it was time for more beer and the night disintigrated from that point onwards.

It was great to see some friendly faces amongst the crowds, we were happy to play the requests of both Bradley and Liam, the newest and youngest recruits to the Abdou cause. I still owe Dan and Julie 50p (yes the deposit for the aforementioned plastic cup).

We stopped by at an offlicence on the way home and celebrated Chris Bell's birthday in good style. Not sure wehat happened at the end of the night as I went up to bed early a little worse for wear.

Thanks to Vis The Spoon for remarkable intros for all of the bands, thanks to John for sorting things out. Thanks to Marc who did his usual sterlng job selling merch. Thanks to the boys in the band for being so patient with me, you are diamonds indeed.

Thanks to birthday boy Chris Bell for some wonderfully in tune guitars.